Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit agus gabhaim míle buíochas leis as ucht an mhéid atá ráite aige. I will divert slightly and say that much of the work of this committee has been focused on Brexit and the impact of Brexit in recent times. One of the areas I have been banging a drum about for two years is connectivity. As an aside, I welcomed the Minister of State's visit to Rosslare Europort last week but we have been working in consort on this, which was remarked upon by the Tánaiste, and therefore it was jarring that he was accompanied only by Government Deputies. The rest of us were not informed of his visit to Rosslare Europort. It is an issue on which we have been acting in a collective manner.

I am interested in putting a couple of questions to the Minister of State in terms of the future of Europe debate. First, I do not know whether he had a chance to read the speech made by the Portuguese Prime Minister, António Costa, on Monday to the Catholic University of Portugal where he set out his view on what he classified as a smaller European Union of values post Brexit. He talked about a two-speed Europe being required now with an inner core of Europe accepting debt transfers, migrant quotas and the rule of law and those who were not willing to subscribe to those being in a second tier, so to speak. He described it as variable geometries because of the real dichotomy that exists in Europe that has to be recognised and addressed if we are to make progress. I do not know whether the Minister of State has had a chance to reflect on that but it is a view he will have heard in any event and I would be interested to hear his perspective on it. If, as I suspect, he is not in favour of a two-speed Europe, how do we address that real dichotomy Prime Minister Acosta has mentioned?

Second, I take it from what the Minister of State said that treaty change is not ruled out but not favoured by the Irish Government. He talked about the unutilised aspects of existing treaties, which is an issue we have discussed previously, particularly the Treaty of Lisbon. He might set out for us what specifically in the Lisbon treaty he regards as unutilised that could and should now be utilised.

Third, regarding the new election processes, particularly the spitzenkandidaten process, which I would suspect outside this House and a small coterie of people would be regarded as a complete unknown entity, I know that the internal dialogue within the Socialists & Democrats, S & D, Group between Frans Timmermans and Maroš Šefovi did not ignite the population of my constituents or anybody else and I do not see how they could in the future. What is the Minister of State's view on that because if we are to have real involvement in elections we have to make them relevant and I am not sure that saying we are putting forward a candidate, from our perspective or that of the Socialists & Democrats Group, Maroš Šefovi or Frans Timmermans is the way to do that?